Thursday, March 22, 2007

Yum Yum Tempeh Patties

I made these for dinner tonight and it was all worth the wait. These patties were fantastic! I loved the combination of the herbs and Braggs, as well as the texture of the tempeh. I typically use Henry's Tempeh (old family friend of my partner's) and for this recipe, i used his basil option.

I should have read the instructions better because between steaming, mixing, refridgerating, and frying, it all took a bit too long, and i like to eat dinner before Ugly Betty is on. At first i was like, 'what, STEAM tempeh - that's sacriligious' but then it all made sense when i needed to mash it up. I also don't have fennel in the house, but i used tarragon as a substitute. It may have been a bit too salty and i could have let the patty saturate better (they were a bit too fragile) but i loved these and will definitely make them again.We had a side of sweet potato fries (baked) and a green leafy salad to go with it. Yum. Good thing i followed the recipe and made 10 (ten!!) patties - i'll be eating tempeh patties all weekend and already made a scrumptious sandwich for tomorrow's lunch. If you don't need so many, just half the recipe and and use 1 block of tempeh.

I am unsure why they're called 'sausages' and not just patties...i can't help but picture Oktoberfest sausages when i refer to this recipe - and i know that's wrong on so many levels!

You're right they don't resemble sausages at all. I think the name "sausage" might be in correlation to breakfast sausage slices that are usually popular in the U.S. for breakfast meals. But I could be wrong. Any U.S residents out there who might be familiar with breakfast sausage "rounds" or "wheels", please provide us with some insight. Thanks!

Hi Vania and Carla and Marta -- glad to see you're enjoying tempeh! and even happier to see you're using Henry's Tempeh!

My hunch is that Marta is correct about the origin of the notion of sausage that looks like a burger...it's a US thing I think.

I use the sausage recipe for pizza topping. I cut up the tempeh and run it through a food processor -- the machine with the whirly blade in the bottom... and the tempeh ends up "crumbled". This is then put into a pan with the spices etc. and heated thoroughly (fried? toasted?) so the flavours blend. The its loaded onto the pizza shell (I use pita bread) together with peppers, mushrooms, etc.. Tastes super!